Improved living conditions and sustained policies can ease lung diseases burden, experts say

Respiratory diseases are no longer confined to smokers or those with known medical vulnerabilities. Increasingly, doctors across Indian cities are seeing patients with persistent cough, wheezing, and breathlessness who have never smoked a cigarette in their lives. The culprit, they say, lies in the very air we breathe.

“Pollution is everywhere. Traffic smoke, dust from construction, exhaust fumes, all irritate the lungs. I see this every day in my clinic,” said Roshan Kumar, consultant pulmonologist at V.S. Hospitals, Chennai. “Children are hit harder because their lungs are still growing. Older people, too, since their lungs are already weak. And people outside all day -- drivers, traffic police, roadside vendors, they suffer the most.”

Benhur Joel Shadrach, consultant in intervention